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I just booked a journey on Eurostar from Brussels to London on a Saturday evening, departing Brussels at 20:22, in Standard class. It's the last train of the day.

I realized after booking that the last train on a Saturday evening could have a lot of rowdy passengers - e.g. people who came across the channel for a day of partying and are heading home, possibly noisy / drunk / unruly / etc. That's not particularly the travel experience I'm looking for. Is this to be expected?

If so, would it help to upgrade to Standard Premier?

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  • Wouldn't they typically party the whole night and leave the following morning? Or stay for the weekend? There may be people going to London to party on Saturday night, though.
    – Berend
    Oct 25, 2019 at 13:25
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    Unlikely. Eurostar is on the expensive side for this type of travel and if you really wanted to party, you wouldn't leave on Sat at 20:22. That's when the nightlife in Brussel is about to start.
    – Hilmar
    Oct 25, 2019 at 18:42

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It's very unlikely. I've been in the train station in London at 2-5am and it's not exactly full of arriving revelers or drunks, it's mostly tired people sipping coffee, waiting for their train out to Paris etc.

It's possible you'll accidentally hit some event that's caused people to come on a popular day for some event, but that could happen any day, in theory, and as commenters have pointed out, if they're partying, they're more likely to party later, and perhaps travel the next day (ie a weekend in Paris, etc).

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  • Certainly based on my experience Saturday evening is a very quiet time for travelling: people are either out partying that night (and hence not travelling), or if they had an event the night before they have already gone home. It's possible if there was a big event in Belgium that day, there would be a lot of people coming back, but I can't think of anything in Belgium finishing before about 7pm on Saturday that would attract a lot of British people other than a Belgium-England soccer international which is not a regular event.
    – Stuart F
    Nov 21, 2019 at 16:46
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As it turned out, everyone in my carriage was peaceful and well-behaved. But passing through the train, I did pass a few groups who seemed to be drinking heavily and talking loudly, and who would have been rather annoying to sit near. And then, the train was delayed for 30 minutes at Ebbsfleet while several unruly drunk passengers were taken off by the police (according to the train manager's announcement).

So, based on one data point, it seems that this is certainly a possibility. Of course I have no way of knowing whether this is common or unusual. I likewise don't know whether Standard Premier class would have been different.

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